Jon Hamm Breaks His Silence on That Now-Infamous Dating Show Appearance From the ’90s

By now the entire Internet has seen the video of a long-ago, floppy-haired incarnation of Jon Hamm, Mad Men superstar and the vaguely enthused voice of Mercedes-Benz, failing to sell a lucky lady a night of “fabulous food, a little fabulous conversation, with a fabulous foot massage for an evening of total fabulosity” back in the mid-’90s. (Note to kids: It was a very scary and confusing time. Ask your parents about their Candlebox CD.) On last night’s Late Late Show, grand talk-show inquisitor Craig Ferguson finally made Hamm answer for his baby-faced, twentysomething self; Hamm, as you might expect, did not duck the line of questioning, since the intervening two decades have more than proven his formula works.

“Did that woman pick you, by the way?”

“Oh, no, she did not. Would you have picked me? That was 1995, and I was all of 24 years old and making questionable decisions with my life.”

Don’t be so hard on yourself, Jon Hamm. Every person in 1995 Los Angeles (1) was required to be on a bad dating show, preferably hosted by a guy whose life would later be complicated by an actor with the same name and (2) had that haircut or the one stolen from Art Alexakis by Captain Spontaneous Vibes. All is forgiven. We all — every last one of us, foot massage or no foot massage — pick you now. (Or maybe the stuntman? The stuntman was kind of chill.)